Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Activists aim to protect 'stunning' Alaska coral

The Center for Biological Diversity is petitioning the federal government to protect Alaska coral under the Endangered Species Act.

"Human impacts on cold-water corals are devastating, in particular the destructive fisheries practices that can wipe out many square miles of coral habitat in a single day," the center says.

Trawls, longlines and pots can all damage coral, but "the greatest threat" is climate change, the group says.

The nonprofit organization, based in Tucson, Ariz., says Alaska corals "occur in greatest abundance and variety a few miles off the Aleutian Islands, in underwater canyons in the Bering Sea, and on the slopes of submerged volcanoes in the Gulf of Alaska."

6 comments:

Yeah, another instance of the greatest threat to life on Earth is climate change.

Underwater corals at depths of hundreds to thousands of feet in canyons, and the greatest threat is climate change.

This statement is obviously based upon years of ocean water quality data, which shows changes in water temperatureat these depths (due to human induced climate change), and links these changes to catastrophic population crashes of corals in these areas.

Such data positively exists. Really it does.

No word yet on the impact of UFO ditchings in the Bering Sea have impacted these fragile corals, but such reseach in soon forthcoming on upcoming episodes of Coast to Coast radio.

The real issue and question is how much will NOAA/NMFS have to, once again, divert resources to chase this white rabbit. This is the bullshit that CBD exploits, and they feed upon recouped fees from technicalities and weak-kneed settlements.

Just another tactic in the global climate change war. CBD uses the ESA because it contains specific mandated timetables for agency response to a petition for listing. Corals were top of the agenda on the latest CITES conference, there is a lot of politicking and agency posturing on the international front, so it will take NOAA some pretty tight choreography to dance around the issue. Look out - the international sensitivities may cause NOAA to take this petition more seriously, say, than the polar bear listing petition. Fishermen may have to deal with critical habitat designations forsome of these charismatic megaflorals.

Because you can't see it means they shouldn't be protected? It's thinking like this that puts our industry on the defensive. These corals are part of the ecosystem and very well could play a vital role in fish stock abundance. Minimizing the damage is a lot better than losing more fishing area. Never liked fishing Seguam pass anyway! Glad they closed it.